Navalyze · Market view · Segment
Container ships, 2020
1,859 container ships reported to THETIS-MRV for 2020, emitting 41.8 Mt of CO₂. Efficiency is measured as g CO₂/t·nm.
The segment at a glance
Median ship
17.6
g CO₂/t·nm
Fuel per mile
172 kg
Median ship
Average speed
14.0 kn
Median ship, distance over hours at sea
Hours at sea
2,821
Median ship, EU-scope voyages (32% of the year)
CO₂ at berth
4.1%
Share emitted alongside in EU ports
Ships burning LNG
13
of 1,797 benchmarked
Operators
The 2020 public files do not name the companies managing each ship, so operator rankings start in 2024.
Efficiency by ship size
Bigger ships move a tonne of cargo for less fuel, so ships are compared within size bands. Each row is drawn against the segment median.
0.25×0.5×segment median2×4×Median
- <10k t48.4 g CO₂/t·nm
- 10–30k t22.6 g CO₂/t·nm
- 30–60k t15.4 g CO₂/t·nm
- 60–100k t11.2 g CO₂/t·nm
- >100k t6.87 g CO₂/t·nm
Who verifies the reports
Accredited verifiers check each ship's MRV report. Their share of the segment's ships and CO₂.
Share of CO₂Share of ships
- DNV43.8% / 44.3%
- ABS28.8% / 25.6%
- ClassNK7.0% / 4.8%
- China Classification Society5.3% / 2.2%
- RINA4.5% / 6.1%
- Lloyd's Register2.9% / 4.4%
- Verifavia2.8% / 3.1%
- Korean Register1.8% / 2.1%
- Bureau Veritas1.5% / 3.0%
- EnvService1.2% / 3.2%
- 5 others0.4% / 1.2%
How fuel is measured
Each ship's monitoring plan names one or more of the four MRV methods.
A · Bunker delivery notes
38%
Fuel bought, corrected by tank soundings
B · Bunker tank monitoring
23%
Tank readings on board
C · Flow meters
46%
Meters on the fuel lines to engines and boilers
D · Direct measurement
0%
CO₂ measured in the exhaust
Most common combinations
- C40%
- A36%
- B16%
- B + C6%
- A + B1%
- A + C1%
- A + B + C0%
Share of 1,818 emission reports that name a method; a report can name several.
Notes
- Medians and rankings use 1,797 full-year reports with fuel; part-year and zero-fuel reports count towards totals only.
- THETIS reports time at sea on EU-scope voyages only, not time in port. CO₂ at berth is the closest measure of port activity it publishes.
- Speed and distance are derived from the published ratios; THETIS has no distance column.